Hospitality
by Osmodion
Summary: Finally figured out plot. Non-magic AU, kinda inspired by outlast, featuring sweet-but-immoral!Harry, cranky!Tom, dissociative-personality-disorder!Ginny, and Hermione. And maybe Severus!Snape at a research facility thats doing no-no stuff. Warning:This got violent.
1. Chapter 1

I apologize for the original formatting-something got screwed up. Some things were changed to fit the plot of the story better since I'm finally getting around to figuring out where this story should be going.

The story will probably be in rewrite mode for a long time, or, at least, until the one day I reread my work and it doesn't sound funky.

* * *

"What the-" Harry cried. "Where did I put my-"

As he heard the rustle of _his _piles of painstakingly tabulated and organized and _perfectly 90-degree-angled_ papers fall off the desk, Tom growled under his breath. He dropped his leaking pen and rubbed his eyes in a tired and distinctly un-Tom-like way.

His research... He needed to invest in one of those automatic stapling printers. And file cabinets. Lots and lots of heavy, stable filing cabinets.

"Did I hear something fall over?" Tom called, innocently.

Harry paid him no heed and instead, bustled around the cramped office space, knocking over a couple more sheets of paper. "Give me a second," Harry replied, distracted. "I need to-where did I put my clipboard? You know, the one with the 'Neville Longbottom' sheet on it?"

Absentmindedly, Tom stroked the little penknife kept in his pocket. Then he removed his hand and sighed. It was too early in the morning for murder.

"Hermione! Hermione! Did you see-"

Hidden behind a massive monitor was Hermione Granger, his colleague and one of the members working on their organization's little side project. Unfortunately, she occupied the other half of his office but, fortunately, was rather agreeable when tired. Her favorite word was "ethics" and she was an intelligent idiot, although he was working on her rigid moral compunctions. Also, he had reason to believe that she did not own a hairbrush.

"You left it in the psychiatric ward, Harry. Remember, near Mrs. Weasley?"

Harry blushed a little, then, he brightened up at the prospect of seeing the girl. Tom sneered into his elbow as he faked a cough.

Harry James Potter was a snot-nosed little child who never had a single shred of respectability and responsibility. How Potter had impressed Dumbledore, their advisor, at his interview Tom would never know, but the old goat had always been senile. Unfortunately, Tom had to endure Doctor Potter twice a day because Granger was his _friend_.

"Gee, thanks Hermione, I'll get the prescription forms back to you in a bit. Uh, when do you need those filled out?"

Granger mirrored Harry's smile. "I'll need them done by 5:00. Tell me if his brother shows-"

Tom ignored the rest. He had two unstable experiments that needed to be check every half hour and a paper due in two weeks. He muttered a bit and returned to his papers.

...

Harry couldn't keep the grin off his face as he walked down the hall to Room 207, Ginny's ward. Ginny was the sweetest, kindest, most beautiful creature he had ever had the grace to set his eyes upon. And he couldn't even pay her enough compliments because she was just simply so modest. He turned at the door. The room, facing east, was aglow with brightness. Ginny, her hair flaming, sat in a pool of light.

Harry, half-blinded, forgot how to work his mouth for a couple seconds.

"G-Ginny, honey, how are you feeling today? You look...stunning."

The tips of her lips quirked up and her eyes crinkled at the edges. "It's nice to see you too, Harry, darling. But I've told you, I'm Luna. Luna Lovegood."

Harry laughed despite himself. "I'll play your game today, Luna. What will it be tomorrow? Susan? Hannah? Cho? Or maybe even Ginny?"

Ginny's eyes glittered. "I don't know, but the nargles sense danger."

Harry sat beside Ginny and wrapped an arm around her. "Dangerous, huh?" he murmured, gazing at her. Ginny crossed her legs and smiled beatifically. "Doctor Harry, what do you prescribe for me today?"

He snickered. "Stone from goat's stomach mixed with chopped slugs to sharpen the mind." Ginny laughed at that, a clear melodious sound. "Oh, silly, you've got the ingredients wrong!"

They smiled at each other, and discreetly, a hand slipped under cloth. Harry's smile curved into a smirk.

...

Hermione blew some loose strands of hair from her face as she scrolled through the hospital's records. Another tab was opened to a fake temporary email, and a third was a search for ethics of invasive nanotechnology.

Idly, she wondered why she had ever decided to work here.

As a postdoc mildly famous in the research community, she had been accepted to work at DG General Hospital, widely considered the best of the best. When she had been sent to the famously secretive ("unspeakable" her old dorm mates had called it) and highly advanced nanotechnology department of DGGH, everything in her life had seemed complete.

Wistfully, she recalled the old hopes of collaborating with like-minded peers and changing the world for better, but now...

It was best not to dwell on some things, Dumbledore had once said. What one person had thought was for the best was not necessarily what everyone thought. And what everybody thought was mis-informed half the time because nobody bothers to dwell on it for too long.

There definitely reeked of gobbledygook. Irritably, she combed a hand through her hair.

She had to admit that Tom was right; Dumbledore had an almost annoyingly unshakable faith in the progress of human success. Tom might have also been right when he said that "good" and "bad" were just human constructs, and that the only truly necessary thing for "goodness" was to keep people happy for the longest time possible using whatever means possible.

Hermione copied the contents of the records onto the end of her email. Usually, she hated breaking rules. She supposed she'd have to blame this on Tom's influence. Even though, technically, what she was doing was considered "good." In a twisted kind of way.

Because if people know what was going on here behind closed doors, earlier, then, well...perhaps it would make fewer people unhappy in the long run.

As her eyes scanned over her email one last time, her clicker hovered over the send button. Hopefully, she'd be in Florida by Friday, and no one would be the wiser.

_Click._


	2. Chapter 2

"Harry, honey. Honey, harry, I love you."

Harry groaned good-naturedly as he slowly turned himself over on Ginny's little cot. Blearily, he blinked a few times to clear the scuttling lights from his vision. She was sitting motionless on the bed's edge with her back to him. Smiling a little, he murmured a sleepy "what's up, Ginny?" to her back.

"I can't believe you did that. Ginny's mad, you know?" She spoke tonelessly.

"Ginny, mad?" He held his jaw to keep from chuckling and put a note of sympathy into his voice. "Why are you mad?"

She did not deign to reply.

Harry tried another route. "Ginny, Ginny, what's bothering you? Please tell me what's wrong, honey, so that I can fix it." At her silence, he continued. "Work with me here, girl, can't you see how much this is hurting me? Hurting us-" "

She whirled around, glistening tears down her cheeks. "I'm not Ginny. I'm Hannah."

He paused, trying to think of something to say. He hated Hannah.

"Ginny loves you, you know. And all you do is fool around with these other girls." She took a deep, shaky breath. "I hope you're ashamed, you-you lecherous, vile..."

Ginny had quite the vocabulary, Harry realized.

"Hannah," he interrupted, "I know it's difficult for you, as a part of Ginny's personality, to live like this, but please understand that Ginny and I have had multiple conversations about this issue. She knows the ramifications and so do I." Even though understanding anything would probably be difficult for you, too, he was tempted to add.

His professionalism seemed to calm the other down. He inwardly sighed of relief. "Do you want me to talk to Hermione about increasing your medication?" Harry asked, picking up his clipboard.

"Hermione?"

"You know," Harry waved his clipboard casually, "nanotechnologies? Very smart, uses big words?" Seeing her uncomprehending face, he faltered a bit. "Bushy hair?" he tried.

"Mudblood?" she muttered.

"What?"

"Leave." she muttered again, and when Harry just stood there, flabbergasted, she turned to him with a snarl. "Leave, you dirty, worthless halfblood!"

He ran out of there to the sound of ringing laughter.

Ginny, mad?

Harry couldn't help but let out his chuckle. They were all mad here.

...

Hermione was still a little bit jumpy from what had transpired yesterday. She had finished booking her flight-seventeen different flights to be exact, to all different locations, and sold all but one, so that they wouldn't be able to track her so easily. She had also cleaned her old blonde wig-a remnant of innocent, earlier times-and an old baggy sweater that she had never worn to work.

In a place such as this, no amount of paranoia could be considered too much.

She finished reviewing the research paper and jotted down some notes on a blank sheet. Scrawling "important! morph. autogene engine set v14" at the top, Hermione checked the time again. It was 3:34.

Great. Two more hours. She fumbled around her bag for another Ativan. She took them with a few quick gulps of cool water and relaxed a bit. All her reports to Dumbledore were done, and she had received an affirmative reply from the investigative journalist this morning. Life was good.

Maybe.

She peered around her laptop at Mr. Riddle, her coworker. She hadn't ever learned much about him from him, other than that he was DG General Hospital's best researcher (cough), that he never smiled, and that he hated being called by his first name.

A quick google search after their first meeting had shown her that he was internationally renowned, had close friends in the government, and had a deceased wife and no children. It was so sad that his wife had died when she was just out of graduate school.

She been forced to make many assumptions about him because he talked to her so little and so impersonally. Hermione thought that he was intelligent, diligent and hardworking, and she also assumed that he was close friends with Dumbledore since they spent so much time together in Dumbledore's office.

She also knew that he knew about Harry's...relationship...with Ms. Weasley.

A guilty feeling encompassed her and she turned back towards her screen to work. But her eyes hurt from the blue glare, and her nerves were frayed from nightmares and harrowing shame.

Maybe she should visit_ him_. The poor kid who had been the cause of all this.

...

Tom Marvolo Riddle felt eyes watching him as he worked. It was the ever-curious Hermione Granger. She had some kind of personal tragedy yesterday, and that had kept her up all night, judging by the circles under her eyes.

He wasn't sure what merited this type of panic from his normally poised coworker, but it was fun to see her so frazzled. Signing his papers with a flourish of his practiced hand, he scooped up his pile of documents and picked up his suitcase. He refused to wear something as juvenile and careless as a _backpack_.

With a cool sneer at Granger's surprise, he walked to the old coot's section of the building. He hated the old coot.

Passing into Doctor Potter's realm of their corporate world, he gazed indifferently at the walls upon walls of closed doors. Doors to the mentally handicapped, the pretending to be mentally handicapped, and the experiments.

He enjoyed watching the experiments. It made his pulse race and his heart flutter with something akin to love.

"Mr. Riddl-Mr. Riddle."

Mood souring, he turned a careless eye at her, some nurse with a "Myrtle" nametag. She had streaks of blond in her light brown hair, and she squinted at him with dull green eyes. Her face had a peculiarly pinched expression, as if it wanted to make one expression while her brain told her to make another. When she smiled, her lips looked like two sausages, smooth and unnaturally extended.

"Hello, Myrtle. How are you?"

"Oooh," she gushed, and Tom's eyes flashed in annoyance. "Dumbledo-Dumbledore said he wanted me to tell you that he wants to talk to you immediately. In his room. And paperwork! Something about paperwork?"

"I appreciate your help, as always, Myrtle." He smiled and left quickly, feeling like he'd been tainted by her presence. Myrtle watched his every step.

"I-I think-I think he likes me." Myrtle moaned in rapture as she watched him leave. "Cedric!" She opened the door to room 189 and in a half-crazed whisper, said "I think he really does like me!"

Cedric smiled sadly from his bed. His body was paralyzed after a concussion from a car crash. "I'm sure he does. But you should follow your heart, Myrtle, not your eyes."

She wagged a painted finger at him. "I do love him, you'll see. I promise you that I'll be happy for you, okay? Now let's get you checked."

* * *

Writing Tom is so incredibly difficult. *dies*

The reporters' name will be revealed next chapter. I'm pretty sure most of you can guess who they will be. The story will deviate from outlast, obviously, but the idea will be the same.

FairlyJane-Me too! I can't play it though because there's just way too much adrenaline. Hope you enjoy the story!


	3. Chapter 3

Uh, somehow this got extremely violent. I would recommend not reading this if squeamish or having pure empathy.

* * *

Hermione paused awkwardly in front of the old, rusted door. She felt a little like she was being judged here, in front of this dingy, moss-colored entrance, by some sinister higher power. Raising a hesitant hand, she knocked twice.

The echoes rang throughout the chamber, and then there was a roar from her left.

Hermione whipped around to face the noise. It came from the direction of Dr. Dumbledore's office and…the experiments.

She shuddered. No one except Dr. Riddle, the Head, and Dr. Dumbledore were allowed in with the experiments. Harry had told her that he'd seem them, once, but she didn't believe his stories. There was no way they would experiment on real—

"Hermione?"

Fred looked at her expectantly from a crack through the door. His face seemed more haggard and dull each passing day.

"Fred—what was that noise?"

He snorted a bit and waved her in. "Probably someone who got caught in the incinerator," he answered coolly. "Maybe my brother."

"That's not funny," she said, looking disapproving. When he motioned for her to sit beside him, she did so carefully, clutching feebly at her bulky bag. "We don't even have an incinerator," she added. Maybe someone had accidentally turn on an alarm.

At his blank stare, she quickly asked, "How are you coping?"

He ruffled his ginger hair and made a dismissive motion with his arm. "Same old, same old. Poor George must be so lonely right now. I hope those bastards end up with the life sentence for kidnapping him."

Hermione tried to feel repulsed at the simple hatred in the dark gaze of this once cheerful young boy. "Fred…" she started, but cut herself off abruptly. It would do no good to remind him that George was killed.

She could still remember the day Dumbledore had announced that George had passed away due to his illness. Fred, yelling "he's lying" at anyone who would listen, had been in hysterics. She had been the only one who had taken pity on the boy and stopped to listen.

Fred explained how he had been hiding in the triangular crevasse between the open door and the wall, waiting to surprise Ginny. George had been sitting on the bed when suddenly, two men in black gear had come in and forced George to take drugs. He insisted that George had been knocked out, but Hermione had seen the body.

She had believed him because recently, she'd noticed some people missing on the long, unofficial records. Harry had never noticed, but Harry didn't have a photographic memory.

Looking away from Fred's hunched shoulders, she checked the time. _4:40_.

"Fred," she tried, "are you sure you don't want to come with me?"

Almost imperceptibly, he shook his head.

"I'd really like it, if you did," she mumbled. "You're like a little brother to me."

She waited.

Slowly, Hermione picked up her things and cradled them in her arms. "I'm sorry," she said.

"I'm sorry," she repeated, remembering the laughs Fred and George and she had shared.

Fred got up and limply wrapped his arms around her. "I'm staying for George," he said. His eyes, she noticed, were a little red. They told her 'I don't want to stay.'

"No," she objected. "You're coming with—"

As soon as she heard the noise, Hermione felt Fred push her away and run. The shriek was high, then low, then high, then low again.

"GEORGE!" he yelled.

Hermione took off after him.

…

"Tom, my boy, how are you? I was expecting you today." Dumbledore picked up another one of those filthy lemon drops and offered it to him. "Lemon drop?"

"Dumbledore," Tom greeted, feeling his brains slowly rot out of his ears. He had half a mind to walk in here one day and interrupt the old coot with the same introduction he gave Tom every. Single. Time.

Dumbledore looked put out, again, by his rejection of the lemon drop. As if he was expecting anything else.

"Well," Dumbledore started, thoughtfully, as Tom parroted in his mind "I suppose we should probably go to the other room, for our discussion, then."

"After you, sir," Tom stated with a genteel nod of the head.

Dumbledore lead them both to the well-furnished back room. The floor was a putrid shade of plum and the walls were covered in wallpaper decorated with scrawling designs. In the middle was an old, antique teak desk laden with stacks of papers, and behind it was a mismatched plush chair. Tom's eyes landed on the plastic and metal seat that was obviously for visitors, and his eye twitched at the cheapness of it. Deliberately, he turned his head and noticed a large portrait of Grindlewald. Tom smirked to himself. If only the public could get a hold of this…

"Now my dear boy," Dumbledore motioned to a chair, "tell me of your experiments."

Tom smiled a self-depreciating smile and recited his summary of the works as Dumbledore fiddled around with a plastic remote. "Both of the experiments are progressing, as planned, sir," he concluded, wondering why he worked for this man at all, when he owned this company.

And speaking of that, why did he even donate his precious project to Dumbledore at all?

Lord Voldemort wasn't a charitable man…

A deep, unsettling cold descended over him as realized what had happened. He struggled against the constants on his arms, legs, and neck, to no avail. He was trapped in the chair. Trapped to the machine.

Again.

"You…" he hissed. "You think you've defiled me, you worthless fool!"

Dumbledore smiled. "Tom, my boy, please don't struggle so. You might hurt yourself."

"I am LORD VOLDEMORT!" he roared. "Unhand me! I will not be tricked again!"

Clucking his tongue disapprovingly, Dumbledore pressed a couple more buttons on his remote and a hidden compartment above Tom slid out to reveal a large, lowering, upside down dome.

Soon it covered Tom's head and his yells of protest were muffled, then gone.

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled merrily.

Tom blinked as Dumbledore sat up and shook his hand. His eyes narrowed at the always abrupt dismissals. Dumbledore was a terrible leader. He never gave an opinion on Tom's work, ever. While they bid each other goodbye, Tom realized he needed a strong cup of tea, now, because visiting the old coot always gave him migraines. This was going to be a nuisance.

…

Harry traced a finger over the two pictures in the worn locket.

It might have once been beautiful, with its elaborate carvings and meticulously etched ornaments, but when Dumbledore had given it to him, along with a ratty old cup, an empty book, and some other old treasures, age had already transformed it to the great brown lump it was today.

He snapped it shut and dropped it into his t-shirt. He didn't really care much for the locket, but it was a handy place to store pictures.

There were only two living occupants in the dimly lit room. The third could be considered living, if the definition was stretched.

As Harry approached, grinning, the red-haired boy curled up on himself.

"Why're you sniveling, Georgie-boy?" he asked cheekily. Harry squatted and reached a hand over to tousle the boy's hair. George shielded away from the touch with a whimper.

"George," Harry whined. "You said you were strong." He crouched down until he was eye to eye with the fearful boy and whispered, "did you lie?"

George opened and closed his mouth a few times, but managed to croak out a no.

Harry raised an eyebrow. Then, he jumped back up and rubbed his chin.

"Hmmm. What to do, what to do. Oh, I know!"

He grabbed George and shoved him onto the operating table, ignoring the cries, the boy's clawing, and the blood that started to drip from George's back. After securing him, Harry groped around for his needle.

"Where is my-? Oh." Harry rolled his eyes and fished under George's back for the needle, which had jabbed the boy in the shoulder. "Sorry 'bout that," he called flippantly.

Harry guessed that it had probably hurt, since the needle was pretty big.

At this point, George was sobbing. "Please Harry, please, please, I wanna go home, I don't care what you do to the others, I just wanna go home…"

"George, what would Hermione say about that?" Harry remonstrated. "You don't want to disappoint Hermione, right?"

George sobbed harder, and Harry finally found the other thing he was looking for.

"My shears!" he cried, pleased.

George started to scream. He wanted to be with Fred and Hermione again.

…

A very grumpy Draco Malfoy and an equally grumpy Severus Snape drove down to DG General Hospital on the bumpy road and the under the blistering sun.

"They just had to make the hospital out here in the woods." Snape snarled.

"You don't even sound that unhappy, compared to usual. I bet you're taking delight in my misery," Draco moaned as he tried to unstick his hair from his forehead. "Malfoy hair was not meant for the heat."

"To hell with your hair."

A scuffle ensued.

* * *

FairlyJane-Yes! I heard about whistleblower :D Can't wait until that comes out.


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